Nostalgia
by Bravegazer
Summary: It was always easy to play the game and watch with a detached sort of attachment. But it's a completely different story when the story itself is as real as you are.


_**Notes:**_

_**I do not own Final Fantasy VII or the characters. I am just borrowing them for my own amusement.**_

_**Warning:**_

_**This is a self insert story, I'm sorry they are just such guilty pleasures for me! :A:  
I understand if you hit the back button but I just ask to be given a chance! Onward and upward!**_

* * *

It was nostalgia that drove me to it in the first place. I had been on vacation and had generally just hung around the house, bored out of my mind. I had ventured out a few times and one of those times, I happened upon a game at a game store. I had wanted to play it since it came out and now it was finally low enough in price for me to buy. Hey, I was a poor former college student so it wasn't like I could actually afford new games (did stop me at times though sadly enough).

Anyway, the game was the mash up of various Final Fantasy characters in one. I didn't care particularly for the story since it didn't have some of my favorite Final Fantasy characters in it yet and I'm an impatient little shit. So I usually went for the all out brawl, choosing my champion and usually kicking ass with him. That's what caused me to get all nostalgic and crap. I hadn't played the game in so many years and now I had a serious hankering to play it.

"Whatchu doin'?" My father, a good man with his temper at times, asked as he walked by my open door.

"Making a mess," I quipped.

"Everyone needs a hobby," he sighed, turning and walking back down the hallway.

I made a noise of triumph as I pulled a clear box off a shelf and popped it open. I frowned when I didn't see my target right off the bat and went about shuffling through the contents. I grinned when I saw my prize sitting towards the bottom of the box. I pulled the game out and looked over the cover with a fond flutter in my belly. This game, Final Fantasy VII, had so much attached to it so it wasn't so much a game as it was a little case full of memories.

I held the game case to my chest as I stepped over the suitcase from the convention I went to the weekend before. I would get to putting it away eventually. Right now, I wanted nothing more than to pop the game in and remember. For some strange reason, my Playstation 2 didn't want to work on my television but odder still, the original Playstation worked just fine. I shrugged as I pushed the open button on the old grey machine and watched the lid slowly open.

"Don't stay on there too long, there is a storm coming in," my father warned as he walked by again, this time towards the kitchen.

"Yeah," I muttered, waving a hand in a dismissing manner. I wasn't afraid of a little storm, although I should have been in hindsight.

I put the disk in the machine and close the lid, hitting the power button just as my dog strolled into my room.

"Hey mutt," I smiled, rubbing him behind the ears as I plop my ass into my beanbags on the other side of the room. My dog just leaned into my hand and acted like he was watching the tv with me. The title screen popped up and I selected a new game and waited as the game started up.

I remembered watching my own father play this game when I was younger. We had borrowed it from a pawnshop he had been working at at the time the just never…returned it. Yeah, we were bad about that, but the pawnshop owner never said anything so he must not have minded too much. And then there had been my cousin. We used to play as the Final Fantasy characters all the time, evening going as far as to say we were "saving" our game when we would take a break from it. It had been a blast but at the time we didn't know any better and would pair the character ups. Of course we did the usual Cloud and Tifa thing, which I can't stand now by the way, and poor Cid and Barret always ended up together. As would Vincent and Red XIII, hey we were like seven or eight and didn't know any better! It makes me snicker to think about it now though. Oh geez the stories I could tell about our little "adventures".

I shook my head and moved the blocky Cloud on the screen down the side of the train as I was finally allowed control. I had to raise my hands up as my dog crawled into my lap and made himself comfortable. I rested my arms on his backside and he just grunted in acceptance. I made it all the way through the first couple of major missions before an odd tingling feeling started in my fingers and worked its way up my arms. I just pushed it aside as my hands going to sleep, which they sometimes did when I sat at something for a long time.

I remembered my dog raising his head up and looking out the window and wondered what he was looking at before the lights went out. I saw a streak of lightning out of the corner of my eye before the tingle became like a static shock on my fingers and I dropped the controller. The next thing I know, I'm looking up at a grey sky with the foul smell of a big city and a pair of green eyes looking down at me.


End file.
